was nothing for him to be alarmed about—but he did not stop watching, did not release the stone and clear his mind of her even though he knew he should. Echo was nothing like Sybil, not in looks or in temperament. She wasn’t like his last student, either, an eager young man who’d wanted much more than he’d initially revealed.
Echo was an open book; she hid nothing from him.
Everyone in Cloughban knew what he was; they knew what he could do. Some of it, anyway. No one knew all, though he was certain a few suspected. Most of them were not entirely normal themselves, though no others had earned the designation wizard. Touched with magic, they had been drawn here as his ancestors had been. Some stayed for a year or two and moved on. Others were lifelong residents. A few came just for a few weeks, curious or needing a short refuge.
Echo asked why anyone would live here, and he had not been able to give her a truthful answer. Here, I am with my kind. Here, I am safe from prying eyes. And most importantly, Here, I feed on the power of the stones.
He never should’ve agreed to help her, never should’ve allowed himself to get caught up in her troubles. It was not too late to remedy that mistake, no matter what Cassidy had told her. Very little in this life was written in stone. He was in charge. He could and would change what was, perhaps, meant to be.
All he had to do was tell Echo he’d changed his mind about helping and send her away. All he had to do was look her in the eye and say, “No.” Sounded simple enough, but as he watched her from a distance, he wondered if it would be that easy.
Postcards mailed, Echo walked back toward the Quinlan house. She wondered if she had time for a nap. No, if she overslept and was late for work again, Duncan would kill her!
The white clapboard bed-and-breakfast was as charming as everything else in Cloughban, outside and in. It was well maintained, in spite of its obvious age. The porch, the lace curtains in the downstairs windows, the plain furnishings—everything was spotless. The kitchen was small but functional, as was the dining room. Mrs. Quinlan—there was never any mention of a Mr. Quinlan and Echo didn’t feel she knew her landlady well enough to ask—slept in the single downstairs bedroom, while upstairs there were three bedrooms and a shared bath for her paying customers. At the moment, only two of those rooms were occupied. Since Echo and Maisy kept very different hours, they didn’t see each other often. Just as well. As far as Echo could see, Maisy had preferred having the second floor to herself.
Maybe she disliked sharing a bathroom.
Maybe she was like those women who’d come into the pub simply to glare at the new woman in town. Maisy was very pretty, tall and dark-haired and definitely a D-cup, so Echo didn’t see how she could see one more female in the mix as a threat, but...they were definitely not becoming friends.
There were several shelves of books in the downstairs parlor. As she passed by, Echo thought that maybe she’d grab one of those and read awhile. Then again, maybe she’d turn on the television in her room and see if it picked up more than one or two stations.
But, oh, a nap sounded so good. She still hadn’t adjusted to the time change.
Echo passed on the book, deciding to check first to see if there was anything on the television. She ran up the stairs, more energetic than she should be, all things considered, and threw open the door to her room. It wasn’t locked. What did she have to safeguard?
The first thing she noticed was that her bed had been neatly made. The next thing she saw was a manila envelope propped on her pillow. Maybe Maeve had dropped off the recipe for her scones, which Echo had praised that very morning.
She snatched the envelope off the bed, plopped down in the faded blue wing chair by the window and removed the contents.
Her heart nearly stopped. The single sheet in the envelope was not a recipe.
It was a recent photograph of her parents.
Echo had accepted a long time ago—somewhere around the age of nine—that her mother and father were useless in a crisis. They were not great parents and never had been. A child had never been in their plans. They liked to travel, to party at any opportunity. Her father’s gifts had never been very strong. He could read minds, when he worked at it. Her mother had been a stray—an independent, Duncan called them—who had the occasional bit of insight into what was to come.
Maybe it wasn’t fair to say they were useless. They did love her. Difficult as they were, she’d never doubted that. But they had never really known what to do with a daughter who had nightmares about disasters, a daughter who woke screaming in the night. A daughter who was much more powerful than they had ever been or could ever hope to be.
She knew the photo was recent because her mother’s haircut—shared in an email a few weeks back—was new. It looked as if they were in Paris. Yes, that was definitely Paris.
In the photo, the eyes of both her parents had been crossed out, messily and completely, with a ballpoint pen.
Her hands began to shake, her breath would not come. This was a blatant threat to their lives, she understood that much, but why here and why now? Who even knew she was here?
She’d just sent postcards to her cousins insisting that all was well. Postcards they wouldn’t receive for days. Maybe weeks, considering where they’d been mailed from. Now this.
For a few long seconds she sat there, horrifying picture grasped in her hands, heart beating so hard she could feel it pounding against her chest as if it wanted to escape. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who to turn to. One word came to mind, as she began to recover from the shock.
Duncan.
* * *
Not only was Echo not late, she was more than an hour early. And she was not dressed for work. She was dressed as she had been that afternoon as she’d wandered about town with that easy smile on her face. For a moment Rye thought she’d shown up early to demand that they begin their lessons. That would be the time to tell her that he’d changed his mind.
No, that wasn’t why she was here. Something was wrong. Her face was oddly pale; her hands shook. He wondered if she’d had another vision—or was about to—and then she shook a manila envelope in his direction and said, “I don’t know what to do.”
She sat in the nearest chair, her legs giving out from under her, and held the envelope up for him to take.
Rye walked slowly toward her. He’d spent the past hour trying to decide how to tell her that he’d made a mistake and she had to go. Now. Tonight. He couldn’t afford to care about her troubles, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be her knight in shining armor. He was the last man in the world to fill those shoes.
He grabbed the envelope and removed the single sheet inside. It was easy enough to tell that the attractive older woman in the picture was Echo’s mother. They favored quite a bit.
“It was on my bed,” she said. “Just...sitting there. I thought it was a recipe.” She took a couple of deep, too-fast breaths. He worried she was on the verge of hyperventilating. “It’s a threat to my parents, right? My cell phone is worthless here. I dug it out of my bag instinctively, then just stared at it for a moment.
